Friday, 30 March 2012

Cameo Appearance

Staff and even management at the Warner Bros. cartoon studio sometimes found themselves plopped into animated shorts. Some were characters driving the plot like in ‘Wackiki Wabbit’ (1943). Some merely made quick appearances, like the Tex Avery unit in ‘Page Miss Glory’ (1936).

Animator Virgil Ross appears to have graced ‘Ain’t She Tweet’ with a cameo shot. Most character designs at Warners about this time feature eyes with whites and pupils and look fairly cartoony. But there’s one character who’s different in this 1952 release: a mailman with beady eyes that looks an awful lot like Virgil.

Layout man Hawley Pratt had a moustache but his face was much wider. Animator Greg Duffell believes it’s Pratt, and as he knew Virgil (I don’t recall if he met Hawley), my guess could be quite wrong. At any rate, it wasn’t Art Davis, as he was bald. It certainly doesn’t look like Manny Perez or Ken Champin, who also worked on this cartoon.

Friz Freleng’s cartoons were known for in-jokes on signs, generally painted by Paul Julian. When Julian left for UPA, Irv Wyner took over doing the backgrounds for Freleng’s unit. He’s on a sign in this one.